News

First published
in News
by Alex Wynick, Reporter covering Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys. Call me on 01865 425403

FIREFIGHTERS attended eleven 999 calls during three strikes held in Oxfordshire from Friday until yesterday.

The call-outs included helping Warwickshire crews with an accident on the M40 north of Banbury on Sunday, in which a man died when a car overturned and went into a ditch.

Another man and a seven-year-old girl were taken to the Horton Hospital in Banbury with minor injuries.

On Sunday firefighters were called to Eynsham after a woman fell from a bridge in Chilbridge Road into a brook.

She had got out of the water when they arrived.

The strikes were part of a national walkout by the Fire Brigades Union over Government plans to change firefighters’ retirement age and their pensions.

The strikes were on Friday from noon to 5pm, on Saturday from 2pm to 2am and yesterday from 10am to 3pm.

Twenty of the county’s 34 fire engines were available, crewed by non-striking firefighters and senior officers.

Mark Summers, the FBU branch chairman at Oxford’s Rewley road fire station, said: “It’s making a stand as part of the union to get fairer pensions. As far as I’m concerned, this is a last resort. Something has to be done.”

The Government said firefighters had a generous pension scheme and claimed that the FBU was “not serious” about finding a solution.